What Kills a Honey Badger?

The honey badger is considered to be pound-for-pound one of the fiercest animals in the world. It trots along the African Savannah with a hairpin trigger, spoiling for a fight. Named for a mop of golden hair on top, honey badgers have been known to take on lions and tigers and leopards, oh my!

The honey badger is not afraid of anything, so the legend goes. They fight to death rather than giving up. One of this feared animal’s unique fighting techniques is to try to sever the testicles of its opponents, neutralizing them in more ways than one.

“Honey badger don’t give a shit!”

That’s a line from a Nat Geo Wild documentary about the honey badger that was appropriated some years ago as the moto of Breitbart, the alternative media network that was run by Steve Bannon before he was appointed strategic advisor to United States President Donald J. Trump.

Breitbart don’t give a shit!

You might have heard that Breitbart played a role in helping elect Donald Trump. Here’s some of the ways this honey badger went to battle for Mr. Trump:

Breitbart and their benefactor, Roger Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica, built a giant database of U.S. voters, sifting through the so-called “dark web” to fill out the database will all kinds of info about you.

The dark web consists of information for sale that is not indexed in Google or other search engines. Very often this data was stolen at some point by hackers who stripped out valuable information like credit card numbers before selling the junk — your grocery store history, for example — on the dark web.

Breitbart produced slick little viral videos to carry their nasty messages to voters.

When Donald Trump sealed the Republican Party nomination, Reince Priebus handed over the keys to the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) $200 million database of U.S. voters.

Trump merged the RNC database with the Cambridge Analytica database to create one of the world’s largest and most valuable databases ever.

Trump used this muscled-up database to send nasty little messages directly to registered voters who had not voted for many election cycles. The targeting of registered non-voters with messages built around their demographics was brilliant and effective.

What, exactly, is in this Uber Database? Few people know for sure. Short of a subpoena, honey badger’s not tellin’! It’s very likely that Breitbart knows more about you than you know about yourself. How is that possible?

Mercernaries for Hire

The suspected owners of Breitbart are Robert and Rebekah Mercer — a billionaire father-daughter team that were early backers of the Trump presidential campaign. They own Cambridge Analytica, which owns the big database which likely now contains the RNC voter database.

The Mercers’ astonishing wealth-creating abilities come from being able to manipulate giant databases, navigate the dark web, and trade on stock market information before it becomes widely available. Using this vast data-mining machine, they are able to spot arbitrage opportunities to hold securities for a matter of minutes or even seconds before reselling at a profit. This machine-generated profit accumulates over time into a personal fortune of billions of dollars.

The Mercers are as protective as honey badgers about anyone messing with their arbitrage operation. When Hillary Clinton proposed taxing such hedge fund transactions, the Mercers became her fiercest opponents. When John McCain proposed such a tax, the Mercers poured money into his opponent’s campaign. Honey badger don’t give a shit if you’re left or right! Don’t mess with his millions!

The Mercers originally backed the Ted Cruz campaign, but when that imploded they bought the Trump campaign, according to The Young Turks. Traditional Republican billionaire donors were still holding their noses over Trump. The honey badger is known for a reversible anal sack that spreads foul odors all over the place. The Mercers got in early and made a deal The Donald couldn’t refuse.

Cambridge Assholitica

A recent news release by Cambridge Analytica says the company is “the market leader in the provision of data analytics and behavioral communications for political campaigns, issue groups and commercial enterprises.” Their website boasts of a database with 5,000 data points. This is even better than George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points of light.” It’s five times better, with 5,000 points of light about you.

You might not be aware you have a kidney condition, but an analysis of your shopping patterns over the past 20 years may let Breitbart know that those kidneys will be failing soon. That is the kind of knowledge they can pull out of this database by using big data analysis software on those 5,000 points of personal information.

Here are some things the Trump campaign knows about you. They know how close you live to a stated Trump supporter. They know which of your co-workers are stated Trump supporters. They know who you are connected to in your community and how you are connected to them. They create a message targeted to your 5000 points and they recruit a friend of yours to deliver it so it gets past your filters.

It does not matter if that message is true or not. Honey badger don’t give a shit! It doesn’t matter whether it’s legal to collect or store this data. Honey badger don’t give a shit! Your friend might not even be aware that they are being used this way. Honey badger don’t give a shit!

Did you know that Breitbart was instrumental in helping to pass the Brexit referendum in the U.K. long before helping Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency? Did you know that Nigel Farage was on Breitbart’s payroll before the Brexit vote? Did you know it was the Mercers who brought Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to the Trump campaign? Did you know that the Mercers financed Citizens United, the Super PAC whose Supreme Court case opened the floodgates for billionaire-funded presidential campaigns?

Remind you of anyone? Image courtesy of wallace used under Creative Commons license

Honey badger don’t give a shit!

Breitbart wants to see the European Union break apart into its constituent states. It wants to see the United Kingdom break into its tribal territories. It wants to see the United States government cede most of its power back to constituent States. Why?

Because the honey badger hates everybody! Breitbart wants to see the fall of the global order for the same thrill that comes from watching a building implode over and over. And now honey badger is on the move!

Breitbart is backing Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Wherever there’s a racist who wants to build walls instead of bridges, Breitbart is there!

Marvel the honey badger! He trades in fear, is a bully at heart, and hates everybody.

So what kills a honey badger?

What is the honey badger’s greatest natural enemy? It’s not lions or tigers, majestic animals that kill plenty of honey badgers. It’s not courts or even cops that kill honey badgers. No, the honey badger’s greatest enemy is the honey badger!

What kills a honey badger is its own aggressive, stupid behavior! When the honey badger attacks a tiger or a lion or a dragon, the honey badger is doomed. It never gives up and so it always loses to a superior foe. You dead, stupid honey badger!

Honey badgers are so gluttonous that they eat themselves sick trying to make sure they don’t leave any food for anyone else. They are so voracious that they sometimes eat themselves to death! The honey badger has no self-control. It can’t stop itself. What kills a honey badger? It’s own greed and gluttony. You dead, stupid honey badger!

It turns out that the honey badger is nothing but a squirrel with a bad attitude and a bad toupe. It turns out more honey badgers are killed by dogs than any other animal. You hear that, Precious? You’re badder than a honey badger!

Honey badger is all swagger and no brains. It is not something to be feared; it is something to be put down — a crazy, rabid weasel that thinks it can take over the world. In the end, honey badger’s stupidity, arrogance and greed will be its own undoing.

We have nothing to fear from the honey badger but it has plenty to fear, because there is no way for the honey badger to escape its mortal foe: itself!

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Steve O'Keefe

Steve O'Keefe is the Content Director at Orobora where he designs content marketing campaigns for authors, experts, companies and brands. Steve is the author of The Complete Guide to Internet Publicity (WILEY) and taught Internet Public Relations at Tulane University for over a decade. In addition to his work with Orobora, Steve is Director of the Staunton Media Lab, a media arts program for the deaf, blind and uniquely able where he sources audio and video for campaigns.